Proteus
by Melchior the Mewthree
Summary: Evolution is a time when someone changes to something more. But, to a small eevee, that change will bring him more than he ever wanted. Please R & R. (Chapter 5: Deepness)
1. Banishment

**_Proteus_**

_by_

**_Melchior the Mewthree_**

--- XXX --- XXX ---

**_Chapter 1_**

**_Banishment_**

****

--- XXX --- XXX ---

The eevee, sitting by the edge of a cliff bordering the great forest, his dark-brown fur lit gently by the dusking sun and the scent of pine trees filling his nostrils, looked at the great golden orb like it was a clock, ticking its way to his fate. He felt apprehensive, to say the least.

In a few moments, he'd be heading towards the glade where his evolution ceremony would be held. Being already five, the eevee was old enough to evolve, a tradition most eeveean families still kept; something that started hundreds of years ago, during times when there were no real 'trainers', when humans still feared the pokemon like forces of nature and worshiped them as such.

Most eevees look forward to that moment of their lives, eager to leave that rather weak form they possessed, exchanging it for something powerful, capable of harnessing the elements to their will. It was also a joyous time for the eevee's family, proud of its newly evolved member. But this particular eevee wasn't eager to change.

It wasn't the first time he'd felt that sense of uneasiness. He felt it for quite some part of his life, the very mention of the term making him withdraw himself from any conversation. The strange thing was that he didn't know why he felt so averted to the concept.

He sometimes thought it was because of the fact that, when you evolved, you became a target for trainers. They sought powerful pokemon, and everybody knew just how powerful an eevee-lution could be. But that wasn't it. An eevee itself was an even greater target for, even though not especially strong, it had incredible potential. Plus, it was far easier to capture an eevee than a full grown eevee-lution.

Most humans believe that eevees can only evolve through stones and loyalty. The stones' part is correct, but an eevee can evolve into an espeon and an umbreon without such thing as loyalty to a trainer. That factor just speed things up. It's not completely necessary. And that was why the ceremony was held at dusk.

He decided it was time and started making his way towards the glade where most probably everyone was waiting for him. In the way, he tried to recall why was it that he just didn't run away from the whole thing altogether. Then, he remembered. His parents; his father an umbreon by the name of Shade, and his mother a flareon named Amber, had always given of the best to him, and had great expectations for his future. He didn't want to disappoint them, and he didn't have the courage and strength to tell them otherwise.

The dried leaves cracked softly beneath his light paws as he padded through the underbrush, dodging thorny bushes and jumping fallen branches, the light that descended through the canopy decreasing gradually as he made his way deeper and deeper into wild territory. The scent of the forest was pleasant, homey. He knew every aspect of that place, every hole, every tree and every berry bush. That had been his home from since he remembered himself as a pokemon, and he had never left it. He hoped he'd never have to.

On the way he heard, with ears so sensitive that little was lost, the sounds around him; a rattata running to its home; a taillow flying away from a faraway branch; magikarps splashing in the lake to the east; but the most resonant sounds came from the direction to which he headed, for it was there that the ceremony would be, and that's something that few pokemon missed.

The glade was like a natural temple of wood and leaves and flowers and water. It was chosen specifically for the fact that it was an elemental and spiritual nexus, and it was in these places that you could feel the energies that bound this world, the power of the elements, and they said that it was because of this power that the plants grew so majestically like they did. That was also one of the few spots left, most already defiled by human hands, which built their sterile and ugly cities where once the beauty of nature ruled, all in the name of 'civilization' and 'progress'.

Everyone he knew was there; his parents, his friends, the other pokemon that lived nearby, and those who lived not so near. There were even those few who came from long distances just for the purpose of watching the ceremony. He had always been amazed by just how many people attended to those things, even though it would probably be quite quick; he was the only one evolving that year.

He made his way through the masses of pokemon that lined each of his sides, all eyes set on him, all eager and analyzing, as if they could judge whether or not he was worthy of what would be given to him at that day. That only made the young eevee's embarrassment and uneasiness rise towards a new level. He kept his head and ears down, trying to block the stares and the whispering.

He reached the center of the glade, where he stood alone in front of the elder, a female espeon of some decades, her once vibrant lilac fur now gray and dull, though her eyes showed nothing more than burning wisdom and power. He had always feared her, especially when he was younger. She was probably not looking at him, but within him, and that didn't help the sensation on the pit of his stomach.

The whispers and talking died as soon as she started speaking. "Welcome my friends, honored pokemon of all species!" she said, her voice overpowering. "We are here, at this day, to celebrate nature! It that nurtures and provides to us, that encompasses all living things, no matter of what kind!" Her voice had a strange effect on other pokemon, and many wondered if she used some kind of psychic power as well. The eevee found himself listening to her every word, like he was within a trance and her speech was all there was in the world. "The evolution is the time when we can truly witness the power of nature, when it blesses one with great power, so that he can use it to honor the traditions that we of the wild have had since the dawn of the world!"

It was then that three other pokemon, a charmander, a totodile and a pikachu, placed the fire-stone, the water-stone and the thunder-stone, respectively and carefully, in a triangular pattern around the eevee, who was really starting to get nervous by then. That was it, he thought, there was no coming back now.

"This young eevee is of age, and thus shall pass through the ritual of evolution," the elderly espeon continued. "He shall evolve, by the hand of nature and fate itself, into one of five elements; Electric, Fire, Water, Psychic or Dark." She then turned her metal-gray eyes to him. "Young one, will you then accept the power that will be bestowed upon you?"

He knew what he had to say. His father had guided him through it, and he could feel Shade's eyes on him, expectant. A lump formed on his throat, and he spoke nothing for a few seconds. He then swallowed it and said, a little shakily, "I-I will accept n-nature's grace humbly and honorably."

She nodded, unfazed by his nervousness, and the eevee saw his father half-smile at the corner of his eye. "Very well. It is time. Let the ceremony begin."

The espeon closed her eyes and started chanting, in a voice so low that the eevee, even right in front of her, had to strain his ears to even hear anything. He felt a strange, warm, tingling sensation that traveled through his body in waves. The stones around him started to emit a bright light, and soon the eevee himself was glowing.

As soon as the light covered his entire body, he started to feel that something wasn't right. The tingling and the warmth were gone, replaced by a blinding, sickening pain. He heard his screaming voice, so far that it seemed like someone else. He couldn't feel his body or his mind anymore, and all that was left was the pain. He was pain, and right then he wished it would stop, by any way possible.

It did stop, not a moment after, almost as abruptly as it had started. He collapsed in his stomach, panting furiously and feeling like letting his lunch leave his body through where it entered. His eyes were closed like his life depended upon it, and he was shacking like a bamboo stick. He felt something wet and soft brush his neck. He opened his eyes, for a moment the nausea increasing, then, when his vision stop rolling, he saw his mother nuzzling and calling him. The look on her face was almost panicked.

"Son, dear, are you okay? Please talk to me. Son?" she kept asking and beckoning him. He would tell her something to ease her fright, but right then he just wanted his stomach to stay where it was, and all of his focus was on that task.

He failed at it, throwing up and filing his mouth and his nose with the disgusting taste of bile. He then greeted darkness, almost gratefully.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

He woke up within his parents' den, lying at the farthest corner of it. His first vision was that of something red and orange, and it took him some time to realize that it was Amber's fur. She began the whole worried mother scene all over again as soon as she noticed he was up, bringing him more annoyance than comfort, though he would never tell her that. He saw his father talking to someone, and he instantly recognized the elder.

"But... has anything like this ever happened before?" his father asked the old female, still unaware of the eevee's awakening.

"I have seen strange things at the ceremonies during the years, but this is something unlike anything that has happened before," she said.

"But he didn't evolve at all, and he wasn't wearing any kind of everstone. Gods, everstones don't even exist in miles from here!"

"True, but the strange fact is that the energies of the stones that were laid around him were all drained by the end of it. All three of them. And I could feel other powers within him as well."

By then the eevee had gotten up and shakily made his way to them, his mother beside him protectively. The espeon and the umbreon became aware of him, and his father was the first to say anything. "Hello, son. Are you feeling better?"

"Like I've been body-slammed by a wailord, but other than that, just peachy," he answered, trying to sound like it wasn't much of a big deal.

"You really scared the locals down there, young one," the espeon told him. "We are still trying to discover what really happened. Perhaps you could tell us how it was for you."

He looked at his father and his mother, in turn, and both nodded, consenting him. "It... it was... painful. Like I was burning in the inside." He shivered visibly at the recollection. "It wasn't a nice feeling."

"Something might have happened with the stones," the elder said. "They could have been flawed or cracked. But, if that were so, they wouldn't have even worked. This is most strange..."

The eevee was starting to get fed up with the whole thing. "I'm going outside for a moment," he excused himself, and then left.

The night air was cold, but only slightly. The eevee found himself enjoying it, letting it ease the lingering sensation of sickness. He could smell the scent of many pokemon, and looked around to find out that there _were_ many pokemon nearby, all trying to hide in the bushes and grass that outline the big tree beneath where his family's den lay. They were all staring at him like he was some sort of circus attraction, and he felt his temper rising.

"Would you people please PISS OFF?!" he screamed at them, surprising himself with such an uncharacteristic outburst. Most started to run away, while other widened their eyes. He was confused for a moment, until he noticed something on the bottom corner of his vision. He looked down to see the dried leaves burning just beneath his feet. He yipped loudly, jumping away, but, right then, he noticed the flames didn't burn him. He felt nothing, except for warmth. He stretched his paw to touch it again, when he realized something quite peculiar about it. His fur was red, not brown, like it was just a moment ago. He stared at it, with a mix of slight fear and surprise, until his parents came running out of the den.

"Son, what's..." his father began, then looked at his son's new look. A flareon's look. "What the..." 

The eevee looked at them, confusion written perfectly in his eyes, until the elder came out of the den herself. She looked at him, and seemed only a little surprised. She walked, her steps slow but precise, until she loomed over him. "It's just as I had thought," she said, and right then the eevee felt once again the sensation of pain filling him. It wasn't as bad this time, but it still hurt. It was over soon, and he was once more an average eevee, this time only feeling a little more nauseous.

"Why does this have to hurt so much?" he asked to no one in particular, as he shakily stood up.

"There was a legend," the elder spoke, "passed on from generation to generation, about an eevee-lution that, unlike the others, didn't only possess one of the elements, and yes all five of them. He was called the Omneon, and it is said that only once at every thousand years an Omneon is born."

As he heard her words, a sense of dread started seeping into his heart. Now he was certain that he should have just ran away when he had the chance. He had always had a bad feeling about the whole thing, and now he had all the reason to.

"There isn't much I know about it," she continued, "for much of the true legend was lost in the centuries. But I do know of one thing. If you truly are the Omneon, then you cannot stay here, within this forest, anymore."

His face fell, and he saw his father and mother about to protest her on impulse. "It is necessary," she cut them. "We need to find out more about this, and here is not the place he'll find the answers."

"But I don't want any answers!" he protested. "I just want to live a normal life, here!"

The elder looked at him, and her eyes told no lie. She wasn't going to let him stay there, and his parents weren't going to go against her. They had too much respect for her and what she did for all the pokemon of that forest. "Another part of the legend says that the last Omneon caused a great destruction over these very lands, a thousand years ago," she spoke. "If not to find the answers to this legend, then I'll keep you out to our very protection."

He couldn't believe it. She was going to banish him because of some mumbo-jumbo she had heard from some old hag before her. And, when he looked at his parents, he knew that he was right. They wouldn't go against her. He was alone in there. "F-Fine," he said, trying to make his voice not convey his feelings, and failing. "I-I'll go. And I won't be coming back." He turned away, eyes already trimming with tears he didn't want to show.

"Son, wait!" his mother cried out after him. He stopped and turned back to her, a spark of hope in his eyes. But she said nothing more, her mouth opening and closing, no words coming out. Her bright amber eyes, from which she had gotten her name, were, like his own, glinting with unshed tears.

Shade looked at the elder. "He should at least be given a name."

The espeon looked at him, then at the eevee in turn. "You are right. No matter what, once evolved, an eevee must be given a name that will be his for the rest of his life." She then took a deep breath. "I believe that it would be appropriate..."

"No." the eevee said.

She stared at him. "What do you mean, no?"

"I don't want you to give me a name," he told her, feeling a strange courage rising in him. "You are no longer my elder, are you?" He then turned to his parents, ignoring the surprised look on the psychic pokemon. "I want them to do it."

His father smiled at him. "Well then, seeing as you can probably use so many different abilities and forms, I think that this would be a good name to you," he said, walking towards the eevee, until he was right in front of him, the elder moving away as he approached. "My son, your name now will be Proteus. Do you accept it?"

"Yes," he answered, smiling slightly, and letting a single tear fall. "I do... dad."

"We'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," he said. "All of you." He then turned and, trying not to cry, ran his way to the edge of the forest, disappearing in the grass and the underbrush.

It took him some time to exit the looming trees, and then he was at a large field of white rocks scattered through emerald grass, the moon casting its faint light all over it. He had been there before, once some years ago, and that brought him memories. Memories of him, with his friends and his family, of times he had no worries, only a will to live to the fullest. He looked back at the green canopies, this time crying without resisting. "Goodbye," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

And he padded away.

--- XXX --- XXX ---


	2. Capture

**_Chapter 2_**

**_Capture_**

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"All right Hera, he's weak, but don't underestimate him!" the blond trainer, who couldn't be older than thirteen, told his female eevee as she stood, panting and lightly bruised, on the middle of the forest clearing, the light emitted by the setting sun making the match more dramatic than most would have thought it was.

Her opponent, a spoink, kept bouncing up and down with the help of his coil-like tail, even though he probably wouldn't stand another few seconds without fainting. His trainer, a girl of shiny red hair, older than the boy though still in her teens, had a hard face as she watched her pokemon being beat up.

"Porky, use confusion, now!" she ordered the pig pokemon.

Her battler's face started to grow more determined, as the pearl-like gem on the top of his head glowed brightly, charging what power he had left for a last attack.

"Hera, don't let him! Quick attack!"

The eevee yipped as she thrust herself at an impossible speed against her opponent, effectively taking him out of the match before he could do anything more. He still bounced up and down even in unconsciousness, which was quite a funny sight for those not used to watching spoinks battle.

The female trainer reluctantly called her fighter back, while the blond commemorated and hugged his eevee, who also seemed incredibly happy. She approached them, her face still showing signs of anger. It soon softened, though, and she thrust her hand for a shake.

"That was one great battle kid," she congratulated him. "You sure train this cutie well. What's your name, by the way?"

He took her hand and shook it with all the pleasure. "My name is Joshua, and this is Hera." he said, pointing at the eevee in his arm.

"Eeeep!" she exclaimed in response. The teenage girl could actually feel a smug sound to that statement, whatever it was.

"Hera, huh? It suits the little devil." She proceeded to pet it. "You know, I've always had a thing for strong female pokemon."

"So do I," Joshua told her.

She took her hand back and turned around to resume her path. "Well, then, see ya later, kid. Hope we see each other another time." she told him, walking away.

"So do I," he whispered, and Hera had a grin on her lips as she noticed the small blush on his cheeks.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Hera had always been a trained pokemon. She had been born and raised in a reserve, though she could never tell you the name of it, or where it was. Living within pokeballs for most of your life did that to a pokemon. She was then more than glad that Joshua almost always kept her outside her ball. She figured he liked the company.

Joshua was a kid like most other trainers. Young, determined and overall a maker of foolish mistakes every once in a while. But, unlike the unfortunate ones, he learned with them, and grew. One of the main reasons that humans let their ten-year-olds, which wouldn't compare to three years of an eevee's life, out by themselves in a journey was that sole fact; hardships made a person mature, and traveling alone in wild territory was one hell of a hardship, most would say. When returned from a long journey, a trainer was often different, more aware of what the world is all about, but without having lost his faith in it. The ones who didn't learn, well, these either returned home ashamed, or joined the Teams.

The two companions walked through the dirt path cutting the forest, Hera, as usual, sniffing and inspecting everything around her, without letting her guard down, though. They could very well be unknowingly invading some other pokemon's territory, and there were some hell of some territorial pokemon out there, Hera would tell you. She was never scared of them, of course, even though sometimes this courage clouded her good sense, and Joshua had to knock it into her with a "Return!" call. She hated it when he did that.

The dirt was soft beneath her maybe even softer paws, and Hera could smell the generations of pokemon who had passed and lived through those parts, as well as hear the cacophony of the living in the deep jungle. She often pitied the humans for their lack of scent and hearing, but, at least, they knew how to get along. They had to, or else how did they survive thousands of years around the pokemon and became the 'dominant' species? But, even though she did not really believe they were _that_ superior, some of them were nice to live with, like Joshua.

Being trained has never been an issue for her. Though many wild pokemon she had met had often called her 'human-lover' or 'traitor' or much worse things, she never cared, letting it all enter through one ear and out the other. Being trained was an easy life. You had food every day, a pokeball was far comfier than most would believe, and the battles were a lot of fun. Plus, with a trainer you got far stronger far faster than you would in the wild, and Hera particularly liked that fact.

"Well, here we are," Joshua said, as they reached an arch looming over them at the reddish road. It was of gray, painted metal and something was written on it, probably the name of the city they were entering, though Hera couldn't tell jack. She often mused asking Joshua to teach her to read. But the kid could barely understand her, and even she had trouble with his words, especially the large and complicated ones, every once in a while. But they got along more than well, plus they ended up learning with each other. It was almost osmosis.

"Great!" she said, in her own tongue. "I could really use a rest." All that was spoken with just a few sounds. Pokemon speech was far quicker than human, and that was one of the things that made it so hard for the bipedal beings.

"It's getting late," he said while looking at the stars, that where now spotting one by one in the twilight skies. That was one moment of the day that Hera was particularly fond of. She had always felt a strange attraction to the stars, since she was a newborn cub, and that was something she'd often ponder about as she gazed at them every night, waiting for sleep to come. "The best thing would be to go to the center and get ourselves a room."

She agreed, and they made their way towards the outskirts of the town.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Your average pokemon center, was what Hera thought as she entered the all too familiar building through the automatic glass doors. How did the humans create those things, she thought she'd never understand. For her, it was a mystery as great as why there was always a nurse Joy in every single one of those facilities.

The building was rather large, for a pokemon center. The tiled linoleum floor was shinning, clearly having been recently cleaned, and Hera made faces at her reflection while Joshua laughed softly at her antics. The eevee ignored the blinding fluorescent lights and the disinfectant smell that plagued every single corner of that place, already long used to such things.

There were many other trainers around there, Hera noted, all either inspecting their pokeballs, pokemon or doing who-knows-what. Some times, a trainer would come rushing with a rather more injured one to the counter, so they could be urgently attended. She couldn't remember the last time she had left a battle that much hurt. It was usually the other way around.

She leapt at one of the seats and made herself comfortable as Joshua made their reservations. She laid there, no more than a cute fur crescent to any passerby, as her eyelids became heavier and heavier, sleep threatening to steal her from the waking world, even in the bright light. She was already half-asleep when it happened.

It was so fast that Hera only became aware of it when the black smoke was already filling her lungs, making her cough violently. She heard the screams of fear and confusion, human and pokemon alike, and desperately tried to find Joshua. She could see or smell nothing in the bleak gas, so she blindly tumbled through the place, trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to avoid the trampling legs running around her.

She ended up on the videophone benches, beneath where she, unable to go anywhere else, hid, accompanied by two other pokemon. The pichu was wailing loudly right beside her, while the sandslash tried to comfort it, or at least make it shut up.

"What's going on?" Hera asked the hedgehog pokemon, raising her voice above the screaming.

"I don't know!" he answered. "But I'd bet all my spikes that it's those bloody Rockets making another theft!" The pichu in his arms, probably little more than a baby, eventually stopped crying his lungs out and, to Hera's ears' relief, contended with a low and scared whimpering.

At that moment Hera became curious to know if those two were friends of some kind, or if they had just met. The pichu was really cute, and she wanted to ask him so many things. What was his name? How old was he? Did he have a trainer? She asked nothing, though, the situation given and the worry for her own trainer overruling those desires.

The sound of many booted footsteps. Hera kept herself unmoving as the smoke started to clear and the screams subsided to sobs, hushed whispers and growling. Then she saw that the sandslash couldn't be more right. The whole center was simply crawling with grunts, all wearing the characteristic black outfit with the famous and hated red 'R' on the front of the shirt. They were all wielding either automatic rifles or pokeballs, and some of them had their pokemon drawn out.

As the grunts huddled the trainers and the few pokemon they had released, hardly enough to counter so many weapons, in small groups, one stood over the others. He was taller and had a very muscular fit, his short red hair coming out in spikes, his eyes a blue like ice. He wore a different outfit, a gray jacket with matching clothes, and Hera could only tell that he was probably the leader of the band.

"All right, everybody shut the fuck up!" he ordered the assembled people, his voice raspy, growl-like and not at all pleasant. It was like hearing an arcanine with throat infection barking. "My name is Reden, in case you assholes are wondering, and all pokemon in this center are now property of Team Rocket!"

Hera finally spotted Joshua on the group closest to the counter, with the nurse Joy also in it. He kept looking frantically to the sides, probably looking for her. Hera wanted to tell him that she was okay, but she didn't want to expose her hideout, as well as the sandslash and the pichu. She had to find another way.

Reden looked satisfied as his grunts took the pokemon and pokeballs from the assembled children, as well as take those who were at the inner rooms, and Hera noted with disgust that he seemed to be particularly pleased when a trainer fell to tears as his or her friends were taken away. She really hated him right then.

"Hey, you!" he called to a group of grunts dangerously close to where Hera hid. "Take a look around and make sure there ain't anyone hiding around, ya hear me?"

"Yes, sir!" they saluted, and proceeded to look under the benches, seats and counters, as well as in bathrooms and other less flashing rooms. They did find some pokemon, as well as a person, and all were either put in the sacs of thrown with the other hostages.

Hera's heart hammered in her chest as one of them went towards the videophones. She looked around, desperately trying to find a way out, and all she found was the sandslash and the pichu, both getting really scared of the prospect of being victims themselves. She couldn't let them be taken like that. Then, an idea flared in her mind. It was way too risk, but it could give some of them the time to escape.

"Hey, buddy." she whispered to the sandslash, turning him to her. "I'm gonna get their attention, and you try to get to the doors, you got me?"

He looked at her like she was insane. "Are you fuckin' crazy?" he whispered. "Those are guns they are holding there!"

But she still looked determined. "Look, I'll do it anyway, so feel free to take the chance or not."

As she got herself ready, he said, "Good luck."

"Thanks, I'll need it." She tensed her muscles as the grunt was already standing in front of the bench beneath where they were. He was about to kneel at them when...

"Now!" she screamed as she tackled the man down silly. She then started using agility, becoming a brown-and-cream-colored rocket, knocking down every grunt she could find.

"Get that fucking thing, you morons!" Reden hollered at his underlings, who looked like they were slipping in soap as they uselessly tried to catch the furry whirlwind.

"Everybody!" Hera called out as she ran in circles through the lobby, knowing fully well that the Rockets wouldn't be able to understand her. "Get out if you can, now!" She knocked down a grunt with a sac filled with pokeballs, and then ripped the bag open with a slash. The balls scattered through the floor, and the Rockets who weren't ice-skating before, were now.

"Forget about catching it! Just shoot the damn thing!"

That was what Hera heard before she became the machineguns' primary target. The bullets whipped and zipped around her, often grazing her fur, as she tried not to get herself killed. She noted with satisfaction that in the confusion some pokemon and even trainers had made it out of there, the grunts too busy about her to care.

She felt something ram her side, hard, and, thanks to the attack's strength combined with her inertia, she ended up crashing on the other side of the room, her head spinning. Before she could get up, though, she was pinned to the ground, and when she looked up she saw that it was a houndoom, his brown eyes staring amusedly at her and his muzzle formed into a grin.

"Where do you think you're going, cutie?" the fire dog sneered at her, and she felt her blood boil, the growl that escaped her throat a perfect indication of that. "Oh, you won't be giving anyone any more trouble, gal."

He crunched her left hind-paw with a sickening sound, and her cry was loud and long as the fiery pain surged through her system. The dark poison didn't help any.

Knowing that she wasn't going anywhere, the houndoom left her. The eevee looked at her leg, bent on an unnatural way, and thought with a humorless grin of what a great job the damned dog had done to stop her. She felt like giving him some of his own treatment, if she got out of that shit alive, that is.

"Oh, what do we have here?" Reden came to her, his voice taunting like that of a school bully. A coward, was what Hera thought of him. No more than a big fat coward. He'd only act like that when he knew his opponent couldn't strike back, instead of fighting like a real man. It disgusted her. "You caused us a lot of trouble, bitch."

Her eyes widened considerably as he got a pistol from his jacket and took the safety off.

"And do you know how we Rockets deal with little bitches like you?" he asked her, as the barrel was pointing to the middle of her eyes. She started shacking slightly, but she didn't cower or cry. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

"NO!" a voice came to her ears, and Hera looked to see Joshua tackle the grunt guarding him, who was distracted at the scene, and run to her.

"Joshua, no, stop!" she tried to warn him, but he didn't hear, didn't understand or didn't care. He just kept running.

Soon, he was on her, covering her with his body.

And then she heard the snap.

He jerked once, his eyes wide, his body tensing immediately. A single second in the clock, that seemed to stretch endlessly for Hera, as she helplessly watched her trainer starting to shake. He looked at her, and she looked at him, and, at that moment, they both realized that each other had the deepest and most beautiful blue eyes, and neither of them had ever noticed that before.

Another shot, and another, and a third, all the while Joshua's body jerking violently, until it collapsed in front of her, his eyes never leaving her face. She looked at his back. All of the shots were at the stomach area, and one seemed to have gotten through his spine. Red bloody splashes covered the wounds, dark pools that increased consistently.

At that moment, Hera could do nothing, say nothing, her mind numb with shock and finality. She could only stare at her trainer's face, as he did the same. Then, his lips moved, and sounds were uttered, whispers so low and weak that she, with her sensitive ears, was probably the only one who heard, who even noticed. And his words where like a bullet itself in her heart.

"Be brave."

And the last one came, ripping through his skull, ending the last spark of life. And his eyes were no longer looking at anything, or anyone anymore. Empty pools of sea blue, with no more purpose, no more use. His last words replayed in Hera's mind like a mantra, as she watched his cold carcass, motionless, expressionless.

_Be brave,_ the litany whispered.

Everything seemed to dim around her, a moment becoming eternity, light vanishing, swallowed by shadow. The cold, the emptiness she felt, deep in her soul, had no comparison.

_Be brave,_ the litany repeated.

"Stupid asshole." Reden said as he lowered his gun. The sickening sound of his voice brought Hera to reality, and she looked at him, her face contorted unlike anything anyone there had ever seen. She eyed him, her look beyond fury, beyond hate, beyond kill-lust. Her body shook with the burning desire to do nothing more than to let his filthy blood shower the floor where they stood.

_Be brave, _the litany taunted.

She let out a war cry, so filled with hate, so filled with hurt, that even the houndoom and the rockets took a step back, aghast. She used all the strength she had on her three good legs, and even more, and sprung at Reden, her teeth aiming at his wretched throat.

But he was prepared and, with his pistol, knocked her with all the force in the face, sending her sprawling to the counter. She landed with a thud, hitting her skull on the floor.

_Be brave, _the litany told her one more time, before the darkness of her soul took her to the bliss of unconsciousness.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

The rockets loaded the stolen pokemon in the large truck they had placed strategically behind the center. They were careful with the pokeball filled sacs, and much less with the large cages holding the released ones. They soon took off, the other grunts leaving in jeeps parked in hidden places in the forest nearby.

The police arrived at the scene two minutes later to find tied, crying and scared people, as well as the nurse Joy and the body of one trainer, identified later as Joshua Anderson, thirteen years old, from the city of Viridian. His body was shipped for examination.

Later, the witnesses would speak of how the trainer sacrificed his life to protect that of a small and brave eevee, thanks to who almost twenty pokemon were capable of escaping the Rockets' clutches.

Driving at a fast speed through a hole filled road, which seemed like no more than a hidden trail in the forest created by the not-so-constant passing of vehicles, the grunt at the wheel of the truck smoked as he watched with half-interest the dark path ahead of him.

At one point, during the travel, he thought he saw an eevee standing at the side of the trail, watching the passing truck with a strange expression. He soon dismissed it as his own tiredness, though, and continued his way through the empty road.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

**Author's Notes: **Whoa, that's the most reviews I've got on the first chapter of any of my fics! Thank you guys, I truly appreciate it. Now, to answer them...

**Eevee: **I actually prefer Sakura and her sisters than Mikey and his brothers, but they're all really cool.

**Q5: **No.

**MistyMew: **Mist, I'm glad you like my reviews on your stories. Oh, and make sure you give them some thought. I've been dying to know what'll happen to Pikachu in 'Darkness Doesn't Cast a Shadow'. Now, I finally put in my big head that pokemon in plural doesn't have a 's', so I changed that in the first chapter as well. Please, keep telling me what you think about this and my other fics (I'll be fixing that in those as well).

--- XXX --- XXX --- 


	3. Encounter

**_Chapter 3_**

**_Encounter_**

****

--- XXX --- XXX ---

He strode slowly and carefully through the bleak forest of fir trees. The stars glimmered in the bleak mantle overhead, like luminous spears stabbing the ebony skies.

The human name of that forest, Proteus didn't know.

The pokemon name, it had never existed.

He had been walking for he didn't know how many hours after he had left his home's borders, always headed north, for back then, that way was as good as any other. He still didn't know what he'd do with his life now that he was out, and every time he tried to come up with a solution, he'd remember his family, his friends, his home. And it hurt. So, he kept looking at the stars through the shadowy canopies, for when he did so, he thought of nothing.

The shadows moved around him, dancing in plays of darkness and secrets in the moonlight. Proteus could tell that there was far more to those shadows than mere blackness, so he kept a watchful eye every now and then.

He walked until he found himself upon the edge of a trail. It was rather large for a forest trail, and there were twin marks in the grassy ground. At that time, Proteus didn't know what could cause those marks for, during his short life, not one human had crossed the lands where he lived. Not into the secret places where his family lived, at least.

The light that came from his right was blinding, and it hurt his eyes. As an instinct, he leapt to the side of the path, and stood there, watching the passing vehicle. Large, roaring as it crushed the floor beneath it. Proteus' father had told him once of the contraptions humans could build to move themselves and their things through large distances, for these were fast and strong, and they themselves were not. Proteus assumed that that must have been one of those things.

It passed right in front of him and, as it continued its way through the hidden path, Proteus had a strange feeling. It was like that vehicle... no... something, or someone inside it, called out for help. He felt anguished cries of fear, in the thin threads of his mind, of reality as a whole, and that unsettled him. He could feel their thoughts, their emotions, and he knew they were afraid.

Then, almost as quick as it had come, the feeling passed, replaced by pain. The burning, now more familiar than he would ever want it to be, surged through him like the swells crashing violently on sandy shores. It disappeared soon, and he was left with the nausea and the trembling. He was starting to really hate evolution.

What had he turned into this time? He couldn't seem to remember or know exactly, but he remembered the feelings he had. The scared thoughts. Minds. Psychic. He must have turned into an espeon for a short amount of time. Great. He couldn't even control the transformations. Well, maybe he could trigger them if he wanted. _If_ he wanted.

But the cries of help did not leave his thoughts, as well as something else. Another feeling, fleeting, almost unnoticed in the despaired cacophony. An emptiness, a sadness of some kind. It was like trying to remember something from a dream. A really bad dream.

So, with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, Proteus followed the hidden trail, towards an uncertain future, but that certainly didn't promise to be pleasant.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Cold it was, and bright. That was what Hera felt as she woke up. Her first instinct was to look around, but she found with only slight surprise that she could only move her head. Metal cuffs, cold and hard, restrained her paws with rough edges that hurt her skin. She was sprawled with her belly up. A human might have been comfortable like that, but she felt like her legs were going to be snapped apart.

The room looked like a pokemon center's emergency room. Sterile white walls, sterile white ceiling, sterile white everything, with small metal cabinets and devices. Such lovely decor should be in a _States and Houses_ issue, she thought with a sarcastic smile.

After an excruciatingly boring wait, almost an eternity in which she just stared at the ceiling, her mind blank, the door, also white she noted, opened. A young man came in, clad in doctor's clothes, followed by a hulky other of red hair and icy eyes.

"Oh, she's already awake." the young one said, half-surprised, as he brushed a black bang from falling in his eyes. His voice and his face seemed soft enough, young enough. It was almost soothing to Hera. Almost.

"_Humph_, ain't the lil' bitch tough." the hulk sneered behind him, moving so the eevee could see him perfectly.

That voice, that grin, that face. Reden.

Joshua's empty body, sprawled in a pool of his own blood.

If Hera weren't restrained, she'd have torn him apart right then and there. Instead, she had to content with a menacing growl that would have made a charizard proud.

He seemed only to please himself with her behavior, and that angered her even more. "You're too lucky that that asshole of a trainer you had was stupid enough to stay in a gun's way." he told her, his voice dripping with indifference and amusement.

Had. Yes, she had a trainer. She had, but not anymore.

She growled louder, though her eyes threatened to spill the tears that it still hadn't. But she would not cry, not in front of the bastard that had taken her trainer's life. He would not have the satisfaction.

_Be brave..._

"That leg won't be healed until around half-a-month," the young one said as he surveyed her. Hera noticed then that her left leg was patched up, pretty much put together back in the right angle, encased in plaster. "Until then we can't ship her to the main headquarters."

"Well, I couldn't fuckin' care less," Reden said as he approached Hera. He looked at her face closely, the defying grin still in his lips. Hera wanted him to come just a little closer. Maybe she could bite his nose of. That would be fun. "You know," he said to her, "I really have to restrain myself from planting a bullet on your head too."

"I heard she gave you one hell of a trouble back at the raid."

"It's none of your fuckin' business," Reden told him, making Hera pleased to know that he'd probably be the laughing stock of the team from now on. He then turned to leave and, when he was at the door, he said, "When you're done, put her with the other creeps. Put her in a dark, hidden corner. Maybe they'll forget to feed the bitch." And he was gone.

Hera was slightly relieved, though she still felt horrible as a whole. She tried to blink back the tears that had threatened to fall, but one came out anyway. She cursed in her mind.

"Now, this will only sting a little," the young doctor said as he held a needle that Hera hadn't seen before, filled with some sort of chemical. She, of course, was against it, but right then there was nothing she could do about it.

It stung her, and right after she felt herself increasingly drowsy, her limbs going limp. It was only a matter of seconds before she was sound asleep.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Later, when she woke up, Hera was in a small cage, in a dark room, where little if anything could be seen. There were other cages around, piled up in tiny mountains, with one or more pokemon in many of them. She recognized some from the incident at the pokemon center, and one of them caught her attention. It was the sandslash she had talked to, before her little stunt. The pichu was nowhere to be seen.

"Pssst, hey," she called him.

He turned to her, and he seemed to recognize her almost immediately. "You!"

"Shhh, quiet." she whispered. She didn't want to draw more attention than she had already.

He started whispering. "It's you. The crazy one."

The statement irritated her for a moment. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, sorry. It's just that you pulled quite a stunt back there," he said. "It was quite impressive."

She then faced the floor of the cage. "Impressive? You thought it was impressive?" She eyed him sharply. "It was stupid, that's what! A fucking stupid stunt!" she told him, her voice rising slightly.

He apparently knew what see was talking about. "I'm sorry... about your trainer, that is."

Her eyes stung. She did not answer, unsure if she could keep a steady voice.

"You're very proud." he said. "Maybe too proud." And he disappeared into his cage.

She wanted to reply to him, say something in her own defense, but she didn't. She didn't have the right to. She was completely to blame; her pride, her courage, all that she had always praised and gloated about, led to the death of the one person that meant the most to her. She hated it now. Hated it all now. She hated herself.

A sob escaped her throat. She could not keep it in, and soon the tears were flowing. She remembered Joshua, of the things they had done together, of the battles they had fought, of the places they had seen, and most vividly of the times they had simply played in the grass, like the greatest and closest friends. Of his eyes, his eyes as blue as the deepest ocean.

The dark room was filled with the sound of her sobs, as she cried in savage bursts, breaking down completely in that dark room. She did not care if anybody listened anymore; she just wanted the emptiness in her heart to go away. She wanted Joshua back. She wanted her life back.

Then, for the first time since she was a small cub, Hera cried herself to sleep.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Five days. Five long, confusing days for Proteus that he spent either finding food and water or watching over the human building hidden within a clearing on the thick jungle.

The truck he followed had stopped and entered in that place. Many humans in black clothes patrolled its perimeter, some of which with growlithes or arcanines in tow, which made it that much harder for Proteus to keep himself from being discovered. He thanked the Gods that his father had taught him how to survive in the jungle against predators, even ones with the sense of smell of an arcanine.

The building itself was large. Three stories high, though nothing could be told about the underground, with three watching towers at key points, and a single gate, through where the humans and their vehicles passed quite constantly.

In that fifth day, the temperature had gone up sky high, becoming almost unbearable, and Proteus could tell that the humans weren't very happy about it themselves. The golden-white sun blazed above him and there were no clouds anywhere. Even though there were trees for him to hide beneath, the humidity didn't help at all.

Crouched in the underbrush, eyeing a duo of humans standing near the entrance, holding something that he believed were the weapons his father had also told him about, that could kill hundreds of yards away with a single shot, Proteus tried to reason, yet again, why was it that he was doing that insanity. He couldn't. The only thing that came to him was the cries for help, and the other feeling, the one he still couldn't put a finger on.

That feeling was what came to his head most often. That strange feeling of hollow. It was like in had brushed right past him, while the other minds lingered for a while. He felt attracted to it, for some reason. And so he waited, and he watched.

He had experienced another random transformation not a day ago. He had been drinking at the river nearby, when he was attacked by a wild mightyena. He jumped at the water to save himself, not even noticing that he was already a vaporeon, and swam at an amazing speed through the riverbed until he was back at safety. Then, out of the water, he changed back. The pain had not lessened a bit.

Something caught the humans' attention, and Proteus froze. But they ran to the other side, and, for the first time, Proteus saw a safe gap in the security, through which he could pass unnoticed.

He ran as fast as he could, hoping that he wouldn't turn into a jolteon all of a sudden. He padded to the door-like opening on the main gate, and slipped in.

The crates scattered through the sides of the building offered him a perfect way to go by unchecked. He walked around them, careful not to knock them down, until he was right beneath an open window. He tried to hear or smell anyone in there and, judging it to be safe enough, he jumped in.

The room was a storage of some kind, cardboard boxes thrown about in a promiscuous way, like they had been stashed in a hurry. The place smelled of dust and old wood. It was dark, and Proteus' eyes took some time to adjust. He leapt over the boxes, and headed for the door.

After minutes of excruciatingly unnerving and embarrassing failed attempts, Proteus finally figured how to open the blasted thing.

The corridors were mostly empty, and the unusual eevee let his nose guide him through the endless hallways and seemingly infinite doors, searching for the cent of many different pokemon in one place, which was what he thought had given him that strange feeling. He walked through other rooms, hid from passing guards, opened a door or two, and walked down a flight of stairs, though not without tripping and falling down more than half its extension.

One of his new life goals was to find the damned soul who had designed that place, and slit his throat.

In the sub-terrain level, Proteus found almost no humans, except for some lonely figures within dark rooms doing things he did not want to find out much about. And then he went down another level.

That was the most creeping one. It was almost pitch black, and he had to trust solely on his nose to guide him through the endless corridors, until he eventually found a door. Red neon lit above it faintly, hardly enough for Proteus to see more than the top of the door itself. He went to it, and tried to trespass, but it did not slide open like he others when he turned the knob.

Frustrated, tired and with the heebie-jeebies all over his body, Proteus growled loudly, then sighed heavily. He'd have to give it a try.

He thought on what would be most suited. He pondered for no more than three seconds before the obvious hit him. He closed his eyes, focusing his entire mind on the form and the element he wanted to incorporate. He didn't know if it would work, but he had to give it a try.

When he opened his eyes again, everything seemed different. He could see almost perfectly in the darkness, and even beyond it. He felt comfortable in it, and, just for a moment, he actually thought that it wasn't such a bad idea after all. He turned back to his senses soon enough, though.

The shadows danced aplenty around him, moving through reality and outside reality, in ways no other being could see. Shadows did not obey the rules of what was real. They were nothing and had always been nothing. But, for Proteus, the nothing had suddenly become something. Something vast, an invisible mantle that covered all the reaches of the 'real', and especially the 'unreal'.

The umbreon jumped gracefully through the darkness, disappearing for a moment from existence.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

_Tap, tap, tap..._

Hera had been tapping her paw, claw outstretched, at the cage floor for she didn't know how long. She found it to be soothing, the consistent and persistent sound keeping her mind numb and silent, devoid of thought or memory. It was a very nice feeling.

Unfortunately, the same repetitive sound had a different effect on other pokemon. Like driving a certain sandslash to the brink of insanity.

"Would you stop that!" he shouted at her.

She stopped for a moment. Then, when she thought the hedgehog had assumed she was done, started tapping again, louder.

"I told you to stop that, damnit!"

"I don't hear nobody else complaining, spike-head," she told him.

"That's because we are the only ones in here!"

She decided to stop it there. It was true; there was nobody else in that room with them. There were others in the beginning, but the Rockets took these after one day. The two of them were left there, alone, for the last four days. Nobody came to them with either food or water, besides what was already in their cages to begin with. Hera could really use some water right then.

The sandslash and her had gotten to know each other. Through insults and witty jokes, that is. His name, she had found out, was Rocker, and he was also trained, his keeper a girl of around Joshua's age, named Meghan, and apparently with a very shy demeanor. Hera wondered how would Joshua and her relate to each other. For a moment, she also remembered the blush he had on his cheeks that day after the battle with the older girl.

The pichu was Meghan's newest pokemon. He was named Ken, and was still practically a newborn. Meghan was going to let it grow up a little before she would let it fight in any battles. Hera had found him adorable, and wondered how good-looking he'd be in a few years. The pichu had escaped the center, mostly thanks to her, though that didn't help Hera's feelings much.

That was mostly all that Hera had found out from Rocker. That and the fact that, like her, he seemed to have been forgotten to die in that dark room. Hera could see in it a lot better now than before, already capable of distinguishing shapes and things she couldn't at first. That's what you get from living in darkness for days.

_Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap..._

"You want to drive me crazy, don't you?" Rocker growled from his cage.

"It's not me, you moron!" she whisper-shouted at him.

Indeed, the taping sound wasn't hers. Something else, with claws, apparently, was walking through the large room, coming from the door at the far side. Hera remained silent, and Rocker took her cue and uttered no sound as well. She didn't know whether or not it was one of the Rockets' pokemon, and she wasn't looking forward for what they had in store for her.

The tapping continued for a while, approaching them. Then it stopped, replaced by a very faint light coming from that direction, followed by a groan, then someone's labored breathing. All the while, Hera could only wonder how much weirder would her situation become.

The sound resumed, though this time muffled and quieter, like whatever was coming now was lighter and with shorter claws.

And, soon enough, an eevee was standing right in front of both their cages, squinting against the darkness as he slowly made his way through the room. He ended up bumping his leg on another tiny cell, and yipped in pain.

Hera tried not to laugh, but it was almost impossible. A snort-like sound escaped her as a result.

He whirled around, facing her cage with narrowed eyes. Hera quieted down completely, but he was already coming towards her, slowly, as if expecting whatever was in there to jump out and eat him.

Hera should have been thinking about what would happen if the Rockets got her, about what in the world were this eevee doing there, about anything disturbing and worrying. Instead...

_Hmm... he's kinda cute._

"Hello?" the newcomer asked the dark space in the cage, very shyly. It wasn't Hera who gave him a response.

"Hey, kiddo!" Rocker called the eevee, who almost had a heart attack.

This time, both caged pokemon erupted in laughter. Hera simply couldn't contain herself anymore. He was too hilarious.

The eevee looked at both cells like he had seen a ghost, then his brows furrowed in irritation, though his body still shook.

"W-would you two stop it! I-it's not funny!" He apparently tried to make his voice leveled, but it still came out shaken with scare and embarrassment.

It was Hera who stopped first. "Sorry, couldn't keep myself." she apologized, her voice still cracked with amusement.

He eyed her cage, and walked to it, until his muzzle was almost trespassing the bars. Now Hera could really get a look at him, and the thing which caught her attention were his eyes. They were wood-brown, like most eevees, but they had a violet hue to them. They also seemed to change tone slightly as he moved, like a kaleidoscope, never the same color for too long. She was so entranced by them, that Hera didn't even understand what he said.

She shook her head. "Uh... sorry, excuse me?"

"I said..." he repeated, "that you are an eevee."

"Well, isn't he an Einstein!" Rocker called from behind him. "Why don't we give him the Nobel Prize of Obviousness?" And then he was laughing again.

The eevee was clearly confused. "Einstein?"

"Shut your hole, Rocker!" Hera reprimanded the sandslash. "Can't you see he's here to help us?" And as the eevee turned to her, she added, "Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah, I guess, but..." He looked around. "Aren't there any other pokemon around here?"

"Used to be." Rocker told him. "But the fuckers took them away after one day and left us both here to die." he sneered. "Aren't they lovely hosts? We should come here more often."

"Who are you, by the way?" Hera remembered to ask.

"Oh, my name's Proteus." he said. "And yours?"

"Hera."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hera," he told her politely.

"Yeah, well, now that the fancy greetings are over with," Rocker said. "Can we get back to how the fuckin' hell do you plan to get us out of here?"

"You're an asshole, spike-head." Hera told him.

"I know." 

"Well..." Proteus began as he eyed the bars. "Are these things fire-proof?"

"I don't think so," she said. "What are you gonna do, though? Give them a flame-thrower attack?"

"Might as well." he said, to Hera's disbelief.

"Great," the sandslash spoke sarcastically. "They got us a wacko savior. Whoopee-dee-do."

But what came next silenced the ground type quite effectively. Proteus edged back from Hera's cage and closed his eyes in concentration. He seemed to become a kaleidoscope himself, sparkling and glowing, like his body was doted with thousands of rainbow-colored stars. His fur waved around unnaturally, like there were wisps of wind circling him. And his body shape changed, slowly and consistently, into something else. It was beautiful.

In the end, Hera found herself staring in awe at a flareon, her mouth hanging limply from her skull. Proteus' eyes were still violet-brown, though now with a constant reddish tint, and they glowed and cracked with an internal fire.

"Now," he told her, "step back."

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Proteus was soon done with both Hera and Rocker's cages; the bars, with its edges melted away, scattered around the floor. They were now all free from their small confinements, but not totally free, for they were still within a heavily guarded Rocket facility, and three getting out wouldn't be nearly as easy as one getting in.

When he was finished, Proteus stepped back, and the lights came back, though this time they seemed almost like a mist, sickly looking tones emanating from it. He groaned again and, back as an average eevee, was left panting and shacking on the floor.

"Are you okay?" Hera asked him.

He looked at her from him crouched position. His eyes were back at never being the same tone for a single moment. "Yeah, I'm okay," he told her weakly. "It just hurts like hell."

Before anything else could be said, the sandslash was already between them.

"So, what's the plan?"

--- XXX --- XXX ---

**Author's Notes: **Whoo, cliffhanger! Well, maybe not that much of one, but hey, you can tell that things aren't gonna be pretty from now on, hehe. ;)

Oh, note to self: Never put any more interactive fics up. :P I'd suggest everyone to do the same.

Another thing: I'll only update this fic if I get at least 3 or more reviews for this chapter. That's not asking too much, is it?

Now, REVIEWS!!! ^-^

**Three A's, a C, and PDBF: **Well, Alex, whether or not Team Rocket will ultimately capture Proteus, you'll have to wait to see. ;)

**grrr: **I really intended to explore the emotional part of my characters above all else, and I'd advise all authors to do the same.

**Eevee: **I don't really intend to add any canon characters on this fic, but you can never be too sure, can you? ^^

--- XXX --- XXX ---


	4. Abyss

**_Chapter 4_**

**_Abyss_**

****

--- XXX --- XXX ---

"So, what's the plan?"

That was a very good question, thought Proteus. When he was on the outside, waiting for a chance to slip in, an in-and-out plan was hardly what passed through his mind. He suddenly felt very stupid, and could almost hear Shade's reproachful speech on the back of his head. And, as both Hera and Rocker looked at him, he knew that they knew.

"You do have an escape plan, don't you?" Hera asked him testily.

"Umm... I..." Proteus stammered.

The sandslash threw his claws on the air. "Great! The freak can get his butt in, but can't get out! Ain't that just terrific?"

At the sound of the word 'freak', Proteus felt his heart twinge, and almost cringed. It hurt to be called like that. It definitely hurt. But, wasn't he a freak? He was a mistake, something that wasn't even supposed to have existed, just part of some old and almost forgotten legend. Something hated, that people would fear and shun. He was an outcast.

"Rocker, you say one more word, and I'll rip your fucking mouth off, you hear me?" Hera growled menacingly to the porcupine, who found himself stepping back. Proteus looked at her in awe, both because she stood up for him, and because he had never thought a female could be that scary.

"Hey, hey, watch that temper, gal," Rocker said. "I didn't mean anything bad, honest. Plus, what could you do against me with that leg of yours?"

Proteus looked at her leg. Her left hind-paw was wrapped in something white and hard, though it didn't seem to be especially strong. He found himself staring intently at the odd thing, his head tipped to the side in curiosity.

Hera seemed to notice his stare. "You've never seen one of these before?"

He looked at her and, then, as his eyes grew more used to the darkness, he saw that her own were blue; a deep, sparkling blue, the color of a clear lake in the middle of spring, like the one Proteus had usually been with his old friends, back at his home. He had never thought anyone could have eyes like that.

"No," he answered, feeling more comfortable with her for some reason. "What is it?"

"It's a cask," she told him. "It keeps my leg from moving so that the broken bone can heal correctly."

"Broken bone?" he inquired as he looked at it again. "You broke your leg?"

"It wasn't actually her," Rocker piped in, causing a frown of irritation to appear in Hera's face. "A really big houndoom used a crunch attack on her. Nasty stuff."

Proteus eyes widened. That must have hurt. That must have _really _hurt. And, as he eyed the thing once more, he felt a strange rage bubbling within him, and a great desire to give the houndoom some of his own medicine, if they were ever to meet.

"Spike-head, can't you dig a way out of here?" Hera asked the hedgehog.

"Well, maybe," he said, scratching his chin. "Its better an idea than nothing." He quickly went to the nearest wall and, after a quick study, put his large appendages to use.

Proteus watched interestedly as Rocker clawed through the concrete wall, each blow and carve strong enough to take whole chunks out of it. The eevee was amazed by the pokemon's strength.

"I'm sorry about him," Hera said as she limped to his side, making Proteus turn to her. "About that whole freak thing. He doesn't watch his own mouth, and can be a real asshole sometimes."

"It's okay," he reassured her. He then looked down, feeling ashamed. "It's what I am, anyway." Saying it like that, bluntly and in the air, seemed to hurt even more.

"No, you're not!" she told him sharply. He looked back at her, at her aqua-blue eyes, for a moment unable to look away from them. They burned with a fire that seemed strong enough to burst him into flames with a stare, but that also held something else. A lingering, deep pain, almost unnoticeable. The fur surrounding them seemed stained, like she had been crying for a long time.

Then, he knew it.

"You..." he whispered, almost unable to believe it.

She looked puzzled. "Huh?"

"It was you," he said. "You. The one that I..." He stopped, unknowing if he should go on. "Something happened to you. Something bad."

Her eyes seemed to lose all the glow they had not a moment ago, and Proteus felt terribly guilty. She looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about." Her tone was slightly bitter, with a forced assurance, but something in it gave it away, and Proteus knew, but wasn't sure if he should poke in further.

He shook his head. "I-I'm sorry, I must have been mistaken."

She looked at him and, at that moment, seemed to be about to speak something, when...

"Holy shit," came Rocker's voice from the wall, where there was already a three feet wide hole.

Hera's demeanor changed unbelievably fast. "What is it now, Rocker?" she asked him, limping her way to the wall. Proteus reluctantly followed her, silently cursing the brown ground type for the interruption.

When he reached it, Proteus looked at the hole. Apparently, whoever built that place had thought of everything, including the construction of walls that had an inner metal layer in them. He _really_ didn't like the fellow.

"Fuckin' assholes! Fucking shitty assholes! They just _had _to think of _everything_, didn't they?" Rocker cried out, voicing Proteus' thoughts.

Hera looked at the scratched metallic surface curiously. "How thick do you think it is?"

Rocker _humphed_. "Judging by the way these Rockets are, we could be talking 'bout some fuckin' dozen inches." He slumped on the floor. "Fuck. I'm starved, I'm parched, and not at all happy. Can't things go a little easy on me?"

Proteus wondered if he could melt his way through the metal, but immediately thought otherwise. Even if he could, the melted hole would probably burn them into three big fireballs as they tried to pass it. And plus, he didn't know if he could maintain himself as a flareon for that long.

"Well," Hera began, "if that's not gonna work, then we'll have to go through the inside of the base."

"Great," came the sarcastic reply.

"This floor and the one above this shouldn't be that hard to slip through," Proteus told them, talking for the first time in quite a while. "There are hardly any humans around. The problem will probably be when we get to the one above that, which is where the exit is. It's filled with people."

"And none of us are in any shape for an all-out battle against Rocket pokemon," Hera said. It wasn't only the cask, Proteus realized. She also seemed weak, like she hadn't had a good meal in quite a while. The sandslash wasn't any better.

"We'll try to slip through," Proteus told them. "It's the best we can do, given the circumstances."

"Y'know, I'm more than sure that door was pretty damn locked. How did you get in here anyway?" Rocker asked him.

Proteus hesitated. Then, he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "The same way we're getting out, I guess."

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Hera was flushed as Rocker hauled her to the back of the umbreon named Proteus, as they stood before the locked door. She felt a mix of discomfort and comfort with the proximity of their bodies. It wasn't that much bad a feeling, actually.

"Now, you both hold on tight," Proteus told them. Rocker griped the fox' long ebony tail with his claws, and Hera made sure she didn't fall from his back. She could feel his now stronger muscles through the slick fur, and she blushed redder.

One thing that Hera noticed about the unusual eevee was that, when he was in his average form, he seemed unsure of himself most of the time. But, when he changed, even his voice was different, more confident, as well as deeper, like he grew older and younger as well.

"Are you two ready?" he asked. Hera and Rocker nodded, the last one more hesitantly.

"This is not gonna hurt, is it?" the sandslash asked.

"No, I don't think so," he answered, though Hera could tell that he seemed to be hiding something.

"Let's go," she said, anyway. He nodded.

And reality shifted.

It was like seeing a very creepy version of the world, like something that would come out of a Tim Burton stile horror flic. Everything seemed twisted and bizarre, colored in shades of black and white and gray. Hera saw things that weren't there before, and things that used to be there weren't anymore. The shadows moved like they were alive. She shivered.

_Don't be scared,_ she heard a voice in her mind, and she somehow knew it was Proteus'. It was even deeper than before. _They won't do anything to you._ He seemed to treat those shadows like they _were _alive, and Hera honestly didn't want to know why. But the assurance of his voice made her relax anyhow.

Then, they walked, slowly, through the door.

It was like passing through a sort of tension; a slight push, and you were in. For a moment the shadows engulfed them with cold claws, and Hera felt the air being sucked out of her, as the darkness became absolute, like a thick and murky liquid. She started to despair. She needed to get out of there. She needed to breathe. She needed _air_.

_Don't worry,_ Proteus spoke in her mind once more. _Just relax. Nothing is going to happen. _The words echoed and rippled through her, like she herself was a poll of water._ Just relax and breathe normally. Don't worry. It will be over soon._

She followed his advice, the sound and the feeling of his words soothing her and helping her relax. She found that she just had to breath shallowly and slowly, like she was in a steamed room. She wondered if Rocker was having the same trouble.

They swam through the pure darkness, like it was an actual substance of some sort. They could have been there for a fraction of a second, or for a thousand years, and Hera didn't know if she'd be able to tell the difference. But, sooner than she expected, it was over, and she found herself on the other side, feeling like she had just gone to the darkest depths and back.

"Holy fuckin' Christ on a bicycle!" Rocker gasped behind her. "That was too much! It was like fuckin' Twilight Zone kinda shit, man!"

Hera looked around. It was still dark, but she could see it was a long, winding corridor, stretching its way through the non-lit base like an intricate maze, illuminated faintly by a red neon sign on top of the door they had just come through.

She felt a warmth and a misty glow from beneath her and, with another voicing of pain, Proteus resumed his eevee self. With her still on top of him. She could feel the slight shaking of his body.

"Hera?" he croaked. "Could you... please... get of my back?"

"Oh, sorry!" she apologized, climbing out hurriedly, with some difficulty and a small blush, which she thanked God no one could see in that darkness. She looked at him as he got to his feet, trembling. He seemed to be even weaker now than when he had turned from a flareon, and she found herself worrying about that.

"Now," he said, as he eventually straightened himself. "We try not to get attention, and we get out, silently."

Rocker saluted. "Yes, oh captain, my captain!"

Proteus looked at him oddly, and Hera just groaned.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

They walked through the pitch-black hallways slowly, careful not to make any sound loud enough to denounce them. Away from the red neon, Proteus couldn't see anything anymore, so his nose had to be his guide again.

Behind him, even though he was only sure of that due to the very faint footsteps, was Rocker, who carried the broken-legged Hera in his back. She was probably passing her time avoiding his sharp spikes, which Proteus didn't think would be an easy or entertaining job, even though the ground type had brought them closer to his body prior so they wouldn't simply impale her.

Proteus remembered how he felt when Hera climbed on his back. He felt hot as her slender body brushed against his, some primal feeling within him rising at the moment. He was almost ashamed to admit that he had liked it. A lot, actually.

The eevee could remember the time when he started to feel attracted to females, especially other eevees and eevee-lutions, though he'd sometimes find himself staring at one of another specie. The first time was when he was two-and-a-half. He had been jogging around the underbrush near his home, pretty much inspecting curiously everything around him, when he spotted a vaporeon swimming at the nearby lake. He had carefully made his way through the bushes and grass, and he spied on her.

Her body was slim and curved, waving gracefully as she swam next to the lake's surface, her blue fur shining brightly in the afternoon sun. She'd often jump out of the water, her finned tail crashing against it as she dived back, sending splashing tiny crystals glistening with light everywhere. She laughed as she played alone in the crystal clear waters. She seemed young, though definitely older then Proteus. Maybe she had just evolved. At the time, Proteus couldn't keep his eyes from her, and he thought, with a childish hope, of meeting her sometime.

The next day, he went back to the lake. She wasn't there, and he had never seen her ever since.

They were careful when climbing the stairs, though the faint light that came from the upper level helped immensely. The first sub-terrain floor was still like Proteus had left it. Almost empty, except for some lone humans in small lone rooms.

"Looks like you were right, kiddo," Rocker whispered behind him, and Hera told him to shush, though not without a bump on the back of his head. Proteus could see now that she wasn't at all comfortable, and he mused offering himself to carry her again. His good sense dismissed it almost immediately.

Proteus was pleased that they hadn't found any 'Rockets', like Hera and Rocker called those humans, on their way. These definitely weren't nice people, for the way they treated the pokemon, not to mention the weapons they carried. He would have to ask his new companions more about them later.

When they were at the bottom of the stairs to the main level, a loud sound pierced Proteus' sensitive ears, and he lowered them so he wouldn't go deaf. It was a constant, irritating wail that traveled throughout the corridors of the base.

"Oh, shit!" Hera exclaimed, raising her voice so they could hear. "Someone hit the alarm!"

"Fuckin' crap!" the sandslash added.

Proteus looked around frantically, and spotted a slightly ajar door at the left side from where they came. "There, quick!" he called, running to it, hoping that Rocker was following him with Hera.

The room was a closet of some kind, shells with many human stile objects towering over Proteus, though he couldn't really tell what they were for. He was relieved when Rocker and Hera entered in it with him.

They remained silent in the dark room, watching as the Rockets ran frantically from side to side, and Proteus wondered if they had been the ones who really set the alarm off. He could hear some conversations between the hurried humans, and one of these caught the eevee's attention.

"...coming at us with everything they got, damnit! We have to get out of here!"

"We'd better find Reden! He might know..." And then they were too far away for him to hear them above the sirens.

At one moment, Proteus thought he saw Hera stiffen and growl during the time they had spoken. But, right then, he couldn't really determine why.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

The afternoon sun blazed over the Team Rocket base, the bright light reflected by its many windows. The sky was a crystal-clear blue, without a single spot of white in the horizon. It was decidedly hot, and humid, but that wasn't in the minds of the building's occupants.

The whole perimeter was surrounded by a great number of unknown trainers, each with their strongest pokemon called out to the fields. All kinds of flying and terrain pokemon blocked all means of escape, restraining the Rockets to their hideout.

All grunts had been hurriedly called into the structure, either by fear or as a means to gather and strategize a battle plan. Some had been willing to try the secret tunnel that went from the underground to an exit almost a mile north of there, hidden in the deep jungle. They only didn't go along with it because the mysterious trainers had discovered and secured that spot far before they had begun their siege.

The grunts couched beneath the windows in the inner corridors, clutching their sub-machineguns and their pokeballs like their lives depended on them. And they most probably did.

They still didn't know who those trainers where. It couldn't be the police, for these people used different strategies than the officers to secure Rocket hideouts. Plus, none of the grunts had ever seen police members with nidokings or charizards or even aggrons. These weren't average police trainers. These were powerful battlers.

The alarm sirens had stopped blaring minutes ago, and the silence was almost tangible, like a film that could be felt in the air. The golden beams of the sun streaked down into the walls opposite to the soldiers. They felt tense.

Then, it began. The attack was swift and subtle, coordinated so that there was no means of escape for the Rockets. That was another thing that made it clear that those weren't police members. Whoever they were, they weren't there to arrest or deliver them to the authorities. They were there to kill.

Uncountable bullets zipped invisibly through the air, like clouds of lightning-fast locusts swarming towards victims from both sides. Elemental projectiles and energy blasts streaked and streamed through the battlefield, as the pokemon took to the fight themselves. Explosions and gunfire deafened the parties and the thick dust and smoke clogged their throats. Flesh and skin and bone was pierced and severed by either offensive fire or the shrapnel that flew around. It was complete chaos, a full-out war.

One of the Rockets' pokemon, a large charmelion, battled a manectric in the open field, trying to duck from thunderbolts and blinking-fast melee attacks, while delivering a fiery inferno to his opponent. He was so engrossed in his personal battle that he didn't notice the fearow eyeing him from above, and he didn't see the bird charging an overly powerful hyper-beam attack.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Hera hid with Proteus and Rocker in the tiny room's shadows, hearing with keen ears the blasts, the guns, the screaming and the roaring. She was now certain that they weren't the ones who had set off the alarm. In fact, they were probably the last thing in the Rockets' minds at the moment.

All of a sudden, a beam of white-hot energy ripped through the ceiling, severing half of the tiny room in its wake. The force of the blast was enough to knock back the three pokemon to the wall, while the opposite one simply disappeared, melted down by the searing heat.

Hera tried to focus. Her vision was spinning, her ears had gone deaf, and her head pounded like a sledgehammer was being constantly used on it. Not to mention her leg, which had ended up knocking hardly on the wall. The pain was intense, but she struggled to get up anyway.

She looked at her companions. Rocker was out cold, while Proteus was still barely conscious. His side was badly burnt; much of the fur gone and the rest charred, half of his cream mane now a coal gray, sizzling in places. Rocker seemed less injured, though he could have hit his head severely.

Proteus looked at her, and said something. She didn't hear it, her ears still unable to work, but she guessed that he must have said her name in the middle of the sentence by the way his muzzle moved. She noticed the blood that started trickling from his side. He seemed in pain.

She couldn't hear the blasts, but she could feel the floor vibrating beneath her soft paws.

She looked to the makeshift abyss, and paled. A large fearow was in the space created by the blast, constantly leveled in the air, his wings beating in rhythm. The flapping caused the smoke and the dust to fly around, and Hera could feel the wisps of wind created by it. The bird's eyes looked at her menacingly.

The bird then looked to Hera's side, and she saw he was staring at Proteus and Rocker with a look of the kind you had when you were about to kill someone. Proteus desperately staggered up, while Rocker was oblivious to what happened around him.

The fearow opened his beak, the gold-white energy already seeping through it.

At that moment, Hera did not think, did not reason. She only saw Joshua collapsing in front of her, and them she saw Proteus being vaporized by a gigantic energy ray. That all passed her mind in a moment, and then she knew what she had to do.

She used her good paws and, with a rather large impulse for someone on her condition, threw herself on the bird, his energy orb almost ready to fire.

She grabbed hold of his long neck with her teeth. She did not use great strength, which she probably wouldn't be able to anyway, but her sharp fangs still dug slightly in the flesh. She could taste and smell the warm copper seeping slowly into her mouth.

The bird flayed and trashed in the air, and Hera saw the flash and felt the heat of the attack being released. She wasn't sure of what had happened, but the fearow was whirling in the air trying to get her of his neck, when she felt something hard hitting both of them. She fell, chunks of rock and melted metal circling around her vision.

She didn't know if Proteus had called out for her, or even if he had escaped the attack. Either way, she hoped he was okay.

And, as she fell towards the silent darkness, Hera was surprised.

She wasn't scared.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

**Author's Notes**

Whoa, a cliffy! I know, I'm cruel. But, hey, that's the kind of stuff that makes people come back!

Oh, and sorry about the slight delay. I had a writer's block problem while writing this, and, well, you know how it goes.

Review answering...

**grrr**

I try to write and update as fast as possible but, like I always say, it'll come out when it comes out, and not a moment sooner. Better to take longer and have quality than to take less time and have crap, ne? ;)

And thanks for the compliment on the characterization. It's a real pain in the ass to get it right, and even then I'm sometimes not happy with it. :P

**Phoenix Rising**

It's one word. ^^

**Silver Wing**

If I didn't make them say any more swear words all of a sudden, they'd be out of character, now, wouldn't they? Still, I hope you keep reading and reviewing. Nobody wants to lose a reader.

**Q5**

What do you mean? There are lots of things to say! Like, why not talk about how unbelievably well I write? No, better not. The review would be something worth of a chapter this size. XD

**Three A's, a C, and PDBF:**

Yes, I know. Hehehe. ;)

And I'm not really thinking about making Proteus turn into other elements besides the five ones we all know. It _could_ happen, but it's not likely.

And you're welcome! ^-^


	5. Deepness

**_Chapter 5_**

**_Deepness_**

--- XXX --- XXX ---

She was falling.

Hera fell through the darkness, the winds whipping her fur and her face as she whirled in the air. She almost felt like she was within a hurricane, if it wasn't for the fact that she was being pulled down, and not up.

It was so silent.

The dark depths, the increasing speed, the difficulty to breath. It like she was back at the door, the cold black claws gripping her. She felt like she was back at Proteus' back, feeling his sleek ebony coat over solid muscles. She could almost feel him, there with her.

So peaceful.

Her mind was numb. There was no fear. She accepted her fate, almost joyfully. The pain would be gone soon. The hollow would be gone soon.

She fell through the murky blackness, her heart numb and her mind empty.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Proteus was paralyzed with shock. He could do nothing; only watch the hole where Hera had just fallen, the fearow hit by debris and rocks, plummeting into deep oblivion.

If it weren't for her, he wouldn't be alive right then. After she gripped the bid's neck, the attack had missed him and instead hit the ceiling around them. Proteus had jumped for safety, missing falling into the abyss himself by mere inches.

The battle still raged mercilessly overhead, and it seemed like it was drawing into the base. Proteus' side hurt like hell, and he saw the blood, trickling thickly through his skin.

"Ow, my bloody fucking head," Rocker said as he wobbled up. "Did somebody check the license plate of the snorlax that hit me?"

"Rocker!" Proteus called him, brought back to reality by the porcupine's rambling. "It's Hera! She fell!"

The hedgehog seemed not to hear him right. "Hera did what?"

"She fell in the hole, dammit!" he screamed, the fact that he sworn not even occurring to him.

"What hole?" the ground type asked, before he saw the crater. His eyes became as wide as saucers. "Holy shit!"

Proteus wasn't listening to him anymore, images of Hera falling, screaming and hitting the bottom, her body left almost unrecognizable, dancing merrily in his mind like a sick joke. He shook his head furiously; he couldn't think like that. She was alive! Alive! He had to have faith. He had to ask the Gods to care for her. But, right then, he needed to go down there, and save her.

He didn't even have to think about it, not even had to concentrate, the instinct and the situation all that was necessary. Before he could even register, he was an espeon, and this time he knew he was an espeon for he could feel the fear and the rage that lingered in the air like a sickening cloud.

_Rocker, _he beckoned the porcupine, who must have had the greatest scare of his life, considering how far he jumped. _I'm taking us both down. Relax and clear your mind, and it'll be easier for me._

Rocker nodded, even though relaxing would be a real challenge for him right then. Proteus could tell that having talked to the hedgehog's mind directly scared the crap out of him, but there was no other way to get his full attention.

The eon closed his eyes, trying to block the other thoughts and emotions around him. It wasn't easy, the assaulting feelings like a full stampede of tauros, but he managed. He reached through the threads of reality to Rocker, and he gripped his body. He nullified gravity, and created kinesis. It was mostly instinct but, being the first time he had done that, he still had to work around things a little. When he was done with Rocker, he focused on himself, and repeated the process.

He opened his eyes and faced the abyss, he and Rocker floating down quite quickly, into the roaring darkness.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

The caves beneath the Team Rocket base were unknown to the humans that lived on the surface, ancient galleries of gray and black and brown rock, with almost no connection to the outside except for the tunnels created by the rock and ground types that lived within.

Within those tunnels, there was a natural lake of waters as clear as sapphires, inhabited by many aquatic pokemon, especially woopers and quagsires, who were dominant in that underground. Any light that touched the clear surface was reflected through the walls of the cave, creating an intricate spider web of light beams. 

The pokemon had been startled by the energy ray that had streaked from the ceiling and into the lake, creating a new communication with the outside. They were even more shocked when two pokemon fell from the hole into the cold waters. None dared approach the place afterwards, and most fled to other spaces of the underground.

Everything was peaceful for a long moment; the only sound the soft whisper of the breeze that flowed within the galleries and the distant sounds of battle.

Hera gasped for air as she resurfaced from the lake's bottom. She padded to the shore, labouredly making her numb limbs move through the water, which was even harder since she couldn't use all her four paws. The water was really cold.

When she reached the muddy earth, taking a moment to get her breath beck, she looked at the lake. The fearow was floating on the surface, unmoving, and there was a dark and consistently increasing pool next to his head, contrasting with the deep blue of the waters. By the surprised look of his face, it was obvious that he had died instantly.

Like she had just noticed she was by a great body of clean water, she started quenching her thirst in large gulps, stopping only for breath. When she was finished, she felt more refreshed, but still tired and hungry.

Hera looked around her. The galleries were vast and wide, the roof towering many feet above her head. Coming back through where she got in was out of the question.

She turned and limped her way through the tunnel, seeing nothing but shadows and rock all around her. She walked until she caught something.

It was a scent, but not any scent, she knew, as she sniffed the air intensively. She recognized that scent, and it made her eyes see red and her throat growl. The smell was being brought by a small breeze that traveled through the dark passages.

She was tired and starving, and her ears were still far from recovered, but she had a hard and determined face and she followed the scent. The same face the fearow had before he had launched that attack.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

The strike was fierce, humans and pokemon fighting, battling, killing, dying. The flames illuminated everything, and the smoke covered everywhere. It was quite a sight. If you had a strong stomach, that is.

A woman sat in a large root of an ash tree, watching the onslaught from behind the forest line, her face hidden in the hood of her purple cloak and her lips twisted in a soft smile. She watched the fight with interest.

"Esper?" she called after some time, her voice silky and little louder than a whisper.

A flash of light from behind her, and an espeon stood in the grass, her forked tail swishing in the air leisurely and her green eyes watching the woman intently.

_What may I do for you, Mistress? _the eevee-lution asked her, her voice an echo in the lady's mind.

"Have you found him?"

_No, not yet. _Esper answered, ashamed. She dropped her head. _His pattern is too erratic. It's too difficult._

"And for an average psychic it would be impossible," the cloaked woman told her. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Esper. You already did a great job of finding this location."

The fox shook her head. _But it's not nearly enough for the Order. They won't be pleased if we fail._

"We have plenty of time." She seemed completely unconcerned, in contrast to the psychic pokemon. "Right now, take those thoughts off your cute little head and focus on the task at hand."

The espeon nodded, a little flushed from being called 'cute'. _Yes, Mistress. _And she disappeared in another flash, leaving the woman to calmly watch the carnage.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Proteus floated down the dark makeshift cave with Rocker, concentrating for all he was worth on not letting them plummet down. The brown porcupine did not seem to be enjoying himself.

"Just how friggin' deep is this shit, anyway?" he asked, scared.

Proteus did not answer, and tried to block the ground type's voice as well. It was hard enough to maintain the power without him bickering and whining.

At last they left the vertical tunnel and found themselves on a great cave of colorful stones, lit gently by the faint light that came from small openings in the rock. They were floating perilously over a great body of water.

"Oh, crap!" Rocker exclaimed, starting to flail in the air. "It's water! I hate water! I just hate it! Just get me the fuck out of here!"

"Will you shut up?" Proteus growled, surprising himself once more. He didn't really understand how his temper was exploding lately. Maybe it was the evolution, or maybe it was the way things were happening to him. He didn't know, but he sure as hell knew that Rocker wasn't helping in anything.

They touched down in the muddy ground, Rocker losing no time in distancing himself as far as he could.

_Ground types, _the espeon thought, annoyed.

Proteus started to painfully resume his eevee self and, when he was finished, he found that the cold water was more than a giving, especially because transforming four times in a single day, he realized, was not good for your stomach or the spasms of your muscles, much less the pounding and burning all over your body. He fought against tears of pain.

"Hey, kiddo, you all right?" Rocker asked him, genuinely worried.

Proteus stopped drinking and looked at him sharply. _No, I'm not all right, _he thought bitterly. _I'm hurt and sick and my side seems like it won't stop bleeding and I can't go home and one of my few friends out here could be as good as dead and overall my life went to fucking hell, thank you very much. _But he said nothing, deciding to shrug off the sandslash and walk away from the lake instead.

"Well... all right, then," Rocker said a little awkwardly, apparently sensing the eevee's discomfort and lack of desire to socialize at the moment. "I'll just... go over there and try to sniff something." He hurried off, much to Proteus' relief.

The eevee then lay there in the cold earth, thinking about the current set of events as his body slowly became more comfortable to exist in, and realizing that events did not come one after the other. They came in packs, all at once, and lunged at you like a bunch of hungry arcanines when you least expected.

He looked around at the faint light rays reflected by the water and the walls, and his mind traveled back to his home, to the lush green forest and the clear lake and his family's den. When he opened his eyes again he almost thought he'd be there, at home, but instead he came face to face with the cold, hard and dark truth. He felt like crying.

"Hey, kiddo, come here!" he heard Rocker call him, and he debated whether or not that was a good thing.

The brown pokemon had apparently found Hera's scent trailing all the way into the deep tunnels. _What could she be doing in there? _Proteus wondered. But he shook his head forcefully, willing his mind to stop thinking for once, just once, and leave him at peace.

He looked at the caves beyond. "Let's go," he said, and there was no room for arguing.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Hera jumped away as gracefully as possible with just three working legs as another patch of the rocky roof came down towards her. The whole base seemed to be falling over her head, and new passages where opened by the minute. She could feel the earth shacking and she could faintly hear the blasts, shouts and screaming above her. That wasn't a battle. That was the fucking Armageddon! But of course, she could just be exaggerating. 

The scent became clearer and stronger and she walked, and she could also tell that he was bleeding. Even better.

At one point, she noticed footsteps on the dusty cavern floor. Whoever created them seemed to be having a hard time moving in two legs, and there were dark spots all over them. They trailed deeper into the caves.

Hera continued moving, ignoring the pain in her left hind-leg and the stress of her muscles,  until she turned a corner, and spotted him, an angry frown finding its way onto her determined face. It was almost time.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

Reden limped through the sinuous passages, his leg and his side hurting and bleeding like there was no tomorrow. He had to get to the surface and away from the base quickly.

The Rocket squad leader knew very well when there was no hope of success, and this was one of those times when keeping on fighting was simply stupid and suicidal. He had no idea who were those trainers and why the hell they were attacking them, but he sure as shit knew that they weren't kidding around.

He had found an entrance to those caves in the lowermost level of the Team Rocket base. In fact, it was more like a hole that leaded to the underground. He didn't remember being told of those tunnels when the base had been described to him in his debriefing before the pokemon center theft.

Before he had entered in the tunnel, he had made sure no one would be able to easily follow him. The two men that were with him at the time disagreed with his 'methods' and even tried to stop him. He had had to take care of them the hard way.

From there, it was a race against time to find another exit, which he was sure existed, since he had seen plenty ground type pokemon hiding in the dark corners of the tunnels, and he knew that they had to have got in there through somewhere. And if everything else failed, his houndoom could find a way out for him.

Reden kept tumbling hastily through the darkness, not noticing the small figure limping her way close behind him.

--- XXX --- XXX ---

**Author's notes: **I am truly sorry about the shortness and the lateness of this piece, but between traveling for Christmas and preparing stuff for the New Year, my life has been kind of a hassle. But, still, I managed to get it done. And don't worry, things are really gonna get spicy from now on. ;) Now, onto the reviews! ^ô^

**Three A's, two C's, and PDBF: **Hey, Cat! 'Sup? ^_^

Well, I do like the Dragon element the most, taking out Dark, of course, but if I was to make Proteus evolve into another element, then I think it would be Flying. I've actually written a fic with a Strateon, my flying type eevee-lution (Stratus + Eon = Strateon) and if you want stats, just ask me.

**Silver Wing: **Hmm... Could be.

Don't worry, if they die, it'll be for a good reason. ;)

Now, about your character, I don't know if it would be good to insert him, especially now that you put everything about him on the review for everyone to read. Plus, I don't enjoy using other people's characters, for the sake of creativity and because I need to practice creating my own characters. Not that Link isn't cool. He's great! I have an Umby with green eyes too! ^_^ His name is Odin! I'll introduce him to you some time. But thanks anyway!

**clara200: **Love is in the air... Don't we all love romance? ^^

And congratulations and thank-you's for your first review to my story. Hope to see you reading it until it's finished. (Which will probably be at the end of the world, at this rate...)

**Subieko: **Well, don't worry, you'll know soon enough. ^-^

You're welcome, but I didn't really _fix _it. FF.Net just took ages to update my profile and the chapter wouldn't work until then. **glares at FF.Net**

Yes, we all saw that.

And I'm glad you don't mind the swearing. I think it adds a comic relief. XD -- Can you see me laughing?

And thanks for all of the reviews at once!

**Charm65: **Charm, my love! (You don't mind me calling you that, do you?) I'm glad you finally reviewed me! **fire-works**

I thought it was cute too. ^-^

No, he's not a freak; he's just a little hard on himself. Poor thing. ;_; **sniff**

I don't know if this chappy was better than the last one, but hey, I do my best, don't I?

And thanks for your first review here!

I'd also like to thank **Scott Kelly**,** SilverMoon **and **Pyr00tje **for their support. If you guys are still reading this, of course.


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